Corporation teams to dissuade guest workers from walking back home

CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation has decided to form flying squads to identify guest workers who are walking to their home states and send them to relief centres. Officials said three such squads would be created, one each for north, central and south regions of the civic body.

“The rescued guest workers will be sent as per the availability of trains. We will provide food and shelter for them until they are sent home. Nodal officers will be appointed to coordinate the rescue,” the official said.

Out of desperation, several guest workers, mostly from Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, are returning to their hometowns on foot. Recently, Andhra Pradesh police found several guest workers walking on the road and brought them back to Tamil Nadu only to drop them on the State border. In another case, owner of a brick kiln in Tiruvallur allegedly assaulted 300 guest workers, who were employed as bonded labourers, for wanting to return home. It was brought to public attention after several NGOs took up the issue.

Data from the civic body suggest that more than 35,000 guest workers have so far been sent home by trains and buses from the city. “We have rescued 1,300 workers walking to their states. Besides this, several workers who have been staying at their workplaces are coming to relief centres. As on Wednesday, more than 4,500 workers are staying in the relief centres,” the official added.

However, activists claim that there are more than four lakh guest workers in the State, half of whom are in Chennai, Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu and Tiruvallur districts.

“Out of the two lakh workers, the Corporation had sent only 35,00. We need at least 20 trains daily to return all the workers. The government should use naval ships and army trucks to transport the workers. It should look at viable solutions, which they are not doing,” said R Geetha, advisor of Unorganised Workers’ Federation. She also opined that the government should have acted earlier in sending the workers home and added that State and central governments failed. “Though the bonded labours were rescued from Tiruvallur, officials sent them without issuing release certificate, which would result in them being denied benefits,” she added.